Evapotranspiration Partitioning Using a Process-Based Model over a Rainfed Maize Farmland in Northeast China

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Dear Authors,

The paper entitled “Evapotranspiration partitioning using a process-based model over a rainfed maize farmland in northeast China” investigated a water balance model to estimate ET partitioning in drought and humid years, seasons, and maize growth stages during 1989 to 2018. The results were explained completely. The discussion must revise. In this section you must discuss the results. The authors repeated the results again in this section. The conclusion supports the results. The paper must consider after major revision.

1.       It is better to summarize the results in abstract and write about the main and the most important results.

2.       LN 32: Es/ET and leaf area index (LAI) and above ground biomassà Es/ET, leaf area index (LAI), and above ground biomass

3.       Keywords: Add leaf Area Index

4.       Fig. 1à replace the figure with high resolution one. The map must have scale, North direction, and a legend.

5.       Site description: What is the soil texture?

6.       LN 95: what are these six plants?

7.       Observation Method: How did you measure AGB?

8.       LN 105: “….nearest station to our sites.”à how many sites did you investigate?

9.       Figure 2: The 1:1 line must have a slope of 1.

10.   Model Evaluation: It is better to calculate MAE as well.

11.   Fig 3 and 4: What is DOY? Explain in the section

12.   LN 270: I prefer to see some citations about the rainfall interception values in maize farmlands (https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ejrh.2019.100656) and global values of interception in crop canopies (https://doi.org/10.3390/hydrology7040076) here.

Author Response

Please see the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

I am reviewing the study entitled “Evapotranspiration partitioning using a process based model over a rainfed maize farmland in northeast China” by Chen and colleagues submitted for publication to Water.

The manuscript fits the scope of Water well and is of appropriate length for a research article. However, it did apparently not undergo internal review prior to submission and should be checked for language mistakes! The text is in quite a few places difficult to understand. 

- Introduction:

- First and second paragraphs: Authors can find some good papers about the relationship between LAI and rainfall interception in Maize farmlands.  As an introduction, authors needs to show some literature reviews,

L 59: "Maize has a high yield per unit area". be specific, how much is it?

L 63: "Rainfed farmland ecosystems will be severely affected by climate change". Why? try to explain it to an unfamiliar audience of your paper.

Material and Methods:

L 93-95: When did you measure LAI? Every week of the growing season for each year? or a certain time of each year?

L 124: Try to use some different performance metrics, like Nash-Sutcliffe index, or correlation coefficient or...

 

 

Author Response

Please see the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

Good job!

Reviewer 2 Report

Congrats!